Quotes & Sayings About Prayer Without Action

Reading a book about something can be an obstacle to doing it because it gives you the impression that you are doing what you are only thinking about doing. It is tempting to remain in the comfortable theater of our imagination instead of the real world, to fall in love with the idea of becoming a saint and loving God and neighbor instead of doing the actual work, because the idea makes no demands on you. It is like a book on a shelf. But, as Dostoyevsky says, 'love in action is a harsh and dreadful thing compared to love in dreams' (The Brothers Karamazov). — Peter Kreeft

Along with my spiritual practices of meditation, affirmative prayer, and visioning, what catalyzes my sense of aliveness is putting those practices into action by being of service to others. — Michael Beckwith

That is what a well-guarded prayer life can reveal about us, that our trust is not in ourselves but in seeking God's strength for what we do. Prayer is not a substitute for action, but prayer undergirds action with the strength that makes the difference. — Ravi Zacharias

Audacious faith is not passive. Neither is audacious prayer. Every aspiration you have in prayer needs an accompanying action. Otherwise you're not really praying. You're just pontificating.
You do the natural. Trust God for the super. — Steven Furtick

All action is prayer. All trees are desire-fulfilli ng. All water is the Ganga. All land is Varanasi. Love everything. — Neem Karoli Baba

All right prayer has good effect, but if you give your whole life to the prayer you multiply its power ... No one really knows the full power of prayer. Of course, there is a relationship between prayer and action. Receptive prayer result in an inner receiving, which motivates to right action. — Peace Pilgrim

Enthusiasm is more active than faith, though enthusiasm cannot remove mountains nor call into action any of the omnipotent forces which faith can command. Activity is often at the expense of more solid, useful elements, and generally to the total neglect of prayer. To be too busy with God's work to commune with God, to be busy with doing church work without taking time to talk to God about His work, is the highway to backsliding, and many people have walked therein to the hurt of their immortal souls. — Edward McKendree Bounds

The word treatment is usually applied to a prayer that is made for some specific purpose, as distinct from a general prayer, which is really a visit with God. You must remember that a treatment is a definite practical action, having a definite object and a definite beginning and end. It is in fact a surgical operation on the soul. Let us suppose that you decide to heal a certain difficulty by prayer. You know that your difficulty must be caused by some negative thought charged with fear and located in the subconscious mind. You therefore turn to God, and remind yourself of His goodness, His limitless power, and His care for you. As you work the fear will begin to dissolve, and the awareness of the Truth corrects the erroneous beliefs themselves. Thank God for the healing that you believe will come - and then you keep your thought off the matter until you feel led, after an interval, to treat again. He sent his word, and healed them ... (Psalm 107:20). — Emmet Fox

But she wouldn't pray, she took what comfort and credit she could for not praying; it wasn't that one disbelieved in prayer; one never lost all one's belief in magic. It was that she preferred to plan, it was fairer, it wasn't loading the dice. — Graham Greene

When God picks out a man and speaks to him, it is to engage him in a work, an action. Nowhere in Scripture do we find indeterminate or purely mystical vocation. — Jacques Ellul

Prayer in action is love, and love in action is service. Try to give unconditionally whatever a person needs in the moment. The point is to do something, however small, and show you care through your actions by giving your time ... Do not worry about why problems exist in the world - just respond to people's needs ... We feel what we are doing is just a drop in the ocean, but that ocean would be less without that drop. — Mother Teresa

I'm talking about influence that God wants to give us. I'm talking about opportunities. I'm talking about walking in paths of righteousness for his name's sake. I'm talking about stepping out in obedience. I'm talking about prayer and action. If our hearts are wide open in faith, then God is wide open to us. — Louie Giglio

A poem is a hand, a hook, a prayer. It is a soul in action. — Edward Hirsch

Prayer power is real. By putting it into action, we will be able to stay more constantly in higher awareness than ever before. If we can do that, the world will quickly change. — James Redfield

We in the USA have been depending on prayers, pleading, and self-abasement to a deity to bring us magical advantages, and have been encouraged to attribute our prosperity and general success among nations, to that sort of action. In my opinion, hard work and dedication to logic and reason ought to be recognized as the reasons for our achievements, not appeals to a mythical friend-in-the-sky. We got where we are in spite of, not because of, those incantations. — James Randi

Prayer in any form is efficacious because it is an action. It will, therefore, have a result. That is the law of this universe in which we find ourselves. — Dayananda Saraswati

Prayer within breath is silence, love within infinity is silence, Wisdom without word is silence, compassion without aim is silence, action without doer is silence, smiling with all existence is silence — Sri Sri Ravi Shankar

TO BE asked to minister without an informing vision of God (which is what theology is really all about), however, is like being told to make bricks without straw. What keeps people going in ministry, and what, in my experience, congregations are longing for, is an exciting and empowering vision of God, articulated in a theology that is integrated with worship, prayer, and social action. — Alister E. McGrath

Good work instead of long prayers. — Anne Royall

Action without prayer thins out into something very exterior. A prayerless life can result in effective action and accomplish magnificent things, but if there is no developed interiority, the action never enters into the depth and intimacy of relationships. — Eugene H. Peterson

God loves a prayer of action. — Bryant McGill

It's unrealistic to think that the future of humanity can be achieved only on the basis of prayer; what we need is to take action. — Dalai Lama

When people are truly dedicated to the Divine, there is no difference between action and prayer. — Mother Meera

When you pray, move your feet." Prayer without action, like optimism without engagement, is passive aggression toward the future. Even — Al Gore

Take every opportunity to remind someone,
'I love you'
Today.
For whether in thought, intention, disposition, prayer, word, action or deed, no act so nobly imitates the Divine Reality - bestowing upon the human spirit the dignity, hope, courage and strength we all need to realize our full potential in the journey of life - as a sincere, authentic, heartfelt expression of love. — Mac MacKenzie

Connect with positive people who will stand in faith with you and lift you up in prayer. Study the Word of God and put your faith in action, for the Bible declares, "Faith without deeds is dead" (James 2:26) — Jocelyn Green

Insights from myth, dreams, and intuitions, from glimpses of an invisible reality, and from perennial human wisdom provide us with hints and guesses about the meaning of life and what we are here for. Prayer, observance, discipline, thought and action are the means through which we grow and find meaning. — Jean Shinoda Bolen

My prayer today is to become more mindful of my personal actions. What motivates me to do what I do and to say the things I do to others? I often dismiss my actions because of stress or anger but the people I hurt along the way do not dismiss what I've said or done. Every action and every word carries a consequence. Every person has stress and every person has anger. I would not like to be someone's target and I ask for the grace to become more mindful not to harm others just because I am having a bad day. — Caroline Myss

Prayer is action. By it we step out in advance of all other results ... Praying is an activity upon which all others depend. By prayer we establish a beachhead for the kingdom among peoples where it has never been before. Prayer strikes the winning blow. All other missionary efforts simply gather up the fruits of our praying. — David Bryant

Prayer in action is love, love in action is service. — Mother Teresa

Prayer without action is no prayer at all. You have to do your work as if everything depends on you. Then leave the rest to God." Mother Teresa — Stephen J. Young

Prayer is based on the remote possibility that someone is actually listening; but so is a lot of conversation. If the former seems far-fetched, consider the latter: even if someone is listening to your story, and really hearing, that person will disappear from existence in the blink of a cosmic eye, so why bother to tell this perhaps illusory and possibly un-listening person something he or she is unlikely to truly understand, just before the two of you blip back out of existence? We like to talk to people who answer us, intelligently if possible, but we do talk without needing response or expecting comprehension. Sometimes, the event is the word, the act of speaking. Once we pull that apart a bit, the action of talking becomes more important than the question of whether the talking is working-because we know, going in, that the talking is not working. That said, one might as well pray. — Jennifer Michael Hecht

Some people think life is all about suffering, and suffering means living life. So many people live their lives accepting suffering as a way of life and they end up living their lives in perpetual self-inflicted pain without seeing a need to awake to take steps to their latent joy! If you are not feeling happy, wake up! There is a reason to be happy and there is a reason for action. There is something solemn, noble and distinctive that can make you happy! Awake! It is never the wish of God that His creation lives in indentured servitude! Pray! — Ernest Agyemang Yeboah

It's impossible to see the face of Jesus without seeking that face in some concentrated way, in the practice of the faith, through prayer and action. — Jay Parini

I learned to be wary that summer of a pious approach to life that saw good intentions and righteous prayer as substitutes for planning and pragmatic action. — Krista Tippett

These are only hints an guesses ... the rest is prayer, observance, discipline, thought, and action. — T. S. Eliot

We complicate prayer as we complicate many things. It is to love Jesus with undivided love-for you, for me, for all of us. And that undivided love is put into action when we do as Jesus said, love as I have loved you — Mother Teresa

Prayer and action ... can never be seen as contradictory or mutually exclusive. Prayer without action grows into powerless pietism, and action without prayer degenerates into questionable manipulation. — Henri Nouwen

Action is prayer in motion. — Charles F. Glassman

Every work undertaken in obedienced to a divine command, whether the work be that form of conflict with the powers of darkness that we call prayer, or whether it be the action that follows, leads sooner or later to a new demand on personal devotion to our Lord Jesus Christ. — Amy Carmichael

My hope is that after you read Imprinted Wisdom, you will be able to see your blessings, to count more of them that you already have. Realize your thoughts touch holy ground. Action with compassion for others will heal all your sorrow. And prayer will lift your veil of tears. Give more of everything than you take. Know that the true spirit of God lies within your heart. — Catherine Nagle

There is always more profit and more consolation in the public Offices of the Church than in private acts of devotion, God having willed to give the preference to communion in prayer over all individual action. — Francis De Sales

Prayer cannot be a substitution for action. — Mary Allsebrook

Believing prayer will lead to whole-hearted action. — Hudson Taylor

When a church is truly convinced that prayer is where the action is, that church will so construct its corporate activities that the prayer program will have the highest priority. — Paul Billheimer

My hope and prayer is that the body of Christ in America will awake with holy boldness, a boldness content neither with silence nor mere words but that backs up those words with action and results. — Frank R. Wolf

I would like to emphasize again that right prayer leads to right action, that faith without works is dead. An excellent way to put thoughts into action is to write a letter for peace. — Peace Pilgrim

Men and women who live Wholeheartedly do indeed DIG Deep. They just do it in a different way. When they're exhausted and overwhelmed, they get Deliberate in their thoughts and behaviors through prayer, meditation, or simply setting their intentions; Inspired to make new and different choices; Going. They take action. Since I made that discovery, I've been DIGging Deep the new way, and it's been pretty amazing. — Brene Brown

Each activity of daily life in which we stretch ourselves on behalf of others is a prayer in action. — Richard J. Foster

Unlike mere action, prayer is not subject to immediate evaluation or verification. If we are addicted to "results" we will quickly lose interest in prayer. — Eugene H. Peterson

It is not sufficient to pray diligently for guidance, but this prayer must be followed by meditation as to the best methods of action and then action itself ... because prayers can only be answered through action and if someone's action is wrong, God can use that method of showing the pathway which is right. — Shoghi Effendi

Centering prayer involves consenting to God's presence and action within - beyond thoughts, images, and perceptions - in order to form a contemplative relationship with God. — David Frenette

What we are taught to seek or shun in prayer, we should equally pursue or avoid in action. Very earnestly, therefore, should we avoid temptation, seeking to walk so guardedly in the path of obedience, that we may never tempt the devil to tempt us. — Charles Haddon Spurgeon

When we feel like giving up, like we are beyond help, we must remember that we are never beyond hope. Holding on to hope has always motivated me to keep trying. I have found this hope by connecting with others. I've found it not only in individuals who have dealt with eating disorders but also in people who have battled addictions and those who have survived abuse, cancer, and broken hearts. I have found much-needed hope in my passions and dreams for the future. I've found it in prayer. Real hope combined with real actions has always pulled me through difficult times. Real hope combined with doing nothing has never pulled me through. In other words, sitting around and simply hoping that things will change won't pick you up after a fall. Hope only gives you strength when you use it as a tool to move forward. Taking real action with a hopeful mind will pull you off the ground that eighth time and beyond. — Jenni Schaefer

Pope Pius XI called for a world-wide day of prayer, to be held on 16 March 1930, on behalf of the persecuted believers in Russia. This action led Stalin to suspend temporarily the antireligious campaign, according to Roy Medvedev — Lynne Viola

Prayer: Father God, I can't thank You enough for all that You have given me. I have so much to be thankful for. My barns are overflowing, and grain is spilling out over the top. Thank You. Thank You. Amen. Action: Take a risk and say "Thank You" in God's presence. Today's Wisdom: For three things I thank God every day of my life: thanks that he has vouchsafed me knowledge of his works; deep thanks that he has set in my darkness the lamp of faith; deep, deepest thanks that I have another life to look forward to - a life joyous with light and flowers and heavenly song. - HELEN KELLER — Emilie Barnes